I'm not sure if this has been touched on before, but this is something I had to join these forums about.

Basically I've been meeting more and more people who have the point of view that if they believed in realism then they would kill themselves, and then they express a lack of caring for any aspect of humanity's future or actually anything. This frightens me on an almost instinctive level.
Then there are other things like "Well I don't care about preserving anything because God will take us within 50 years anyway" that give me the same feeling.

Maybe it's because I was born and raised in a large British town with an overwhelming atheist majority, so not used to this kind of thing. Not too sure. Any opinions, stories, quotes?

(27-08-2010 12:30 AM)Cetaceaphile Wrote: Then there are other things like "Well I don't care about preserving anything because God will take us within 50 years anyway" that give me the same feeling.

I can relate to this one. I've heard things like this my entire life, and it's absolutely insane, even from their point of view! At the time of the scripture writing they believed the end to come within their lifetimes, and how many more generations have passed since then? Prophecy after prophecy of the end of the world and "end-time signs" have been misinterpreted for centuries, but they still believe that their actions have no consequences. It's a dangerous way of thinking for sure, and one of the reasons why I believe it's important to debunk this destructive way of life.

Also, welcome to the site!

"It does feel like something to be wrong; it feels like being right." -Kathryn Schulz
I am 100% certain that I am wrong about something I am certain about right now. Because even if everything I stand for turns out to be completely true, I was still wrong about being wrong.

When I asked my friend why he believes in God, he said that if he didn't, he would go crazy and murder, rob people etc...

Albeit, he is an ultra-jacked testosterone packed 15 year old male, but it is scary that these people feel that without God stopping them, they would pull this off. I doubt that he specifically actually would, but there are people who would.

(27-08-2010 06:48 AM)TruthAddict Wrote: I doubt that he specifically actually would, but there are people who would.

This.

The thing is, most people, especially those who are generally rational in all the other aspects of their life, would soon enough realize (if not immediately) that even if there's no God, they are responsible for their actions and generally accountable to their fellow humans. They may at first feel that they could "do anything they wanted because there's no rules" but assuming that they came to their disbelief for good reasons (as it seems most of us have) they would quickly apply logic and reason to their personal moral code.

There are those who might go off the deep end, but they're probably the ones who've jumped off already. There's also those who deliberately work to fulfill whatever prophecies they believe have been made, in order to hasten the end of the world and bring back the Savior (specifically the Abrahamic religions have some version of this, I think). *shudder* That stuff's pretty wacky.

Our brains deceive us on a regular basis, so we have to find ways to fight back.

My dad once said "If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, then you are no son of mine!"
Maybe not scary, but hurtful and ridiculous. He has since gotten over it but that just goes to show how colsed minded and hateful religion can make a person.

"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The others have fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest - and when I say thinking I mean thinking - you and I must do it." - A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Quote:When I asked my friend why he believes in God, he said that if he didn't, he would go crazy and murder, rob people etc...

This I do not get. I hear and read quite frequently that somehow religion is the basis for morality, but I really don't get it.

I don't cheat on my wife and take the 25 year old girl in my office with the chestnut hair and great body who constantly smiles at me and bang her off the headboard of one of the rooms in the Marriott across the street because 7th Commandment tells me not to (or because I don't want to because, believe me, I do). I don't do it because I love my wife and would never betray her that way and I love my sons and I don't want to do anything to anything to interfere with my relationship with them (like become a weekend dad) and because I consider cheating on my wife to be immoral. I reach that conclusion without any religious rational (and without factoring in that if I did cheat on my wife and she divorced, she gets not only half but alimony and child support).

There is a great George Carlin bit about sins. He basically goes on about how just thinking about committing a mortal sin is a mortal sin. So, if you wake up in the morning and say to yourself "I think I'm going to commit a mortal sin today", then save yourself the time because you just did! This rational that I would lie, cheat, murder, etc. if only there wasn't a God I think basically contradicts what religion purports to teach. It's hard to take it seriously when it comes from a 15 year old but I hear this nonsense from seemingly intelligent adults too.

Shackle their minds when they're bent on the cross
When ignorance reigns, life is lost

It's quite mind boggling for me.
I see all the videos of the generalization, but I never seen it so close. Hearing it from people who actually see this up close all the time. I always kind of hoped it was like a thing where most of them didn't think too closely to it. I'm not sure if it's a comfort or reason to be more anxious.

Quote:Please keep in mind the motive behind our argument. Despite popular opinion, us "Bible Thumpers" are not people that go around telling people they're going to hell for sick kicks.

I, at least, am truly concerned. I don't do this out of pride, but out of humility (it's pride-breaking to go against the flow of people, who will in-turn mock you and your beliefs) and submission to the one that saved﻿ me from the punishment I entirely deserved. I'll use all the propoganda I can if it will save you.

Why is this scary? Because I wrote it one year ago to an atheist on Facebook. =P To think that even I was THIS DEEP into this delusion is scary. It gives me perspective about the others out there and keeps me understanding that the theists out there aren't just out there to make our lives hell, but on the inside feel they have a more noble cause, even if it is all for nothing. It's this kind of thing that makes me want to free others from this deluson.

Here's the second. This was actually the most scary thing I've heard, even moreso because it was uttered by my brother. I'm copying straight from Facebook:

Quote:“If you heard of such an atrocity [the massacre detailed in Numbers 31] committed by Christians today, would you be unmoved and say the same "They had it coming"?”

If I KNEW God had commanded it? Yes. The fact is, though, God has already made perfectly clear that’s NOT going to happen. The next battle God is going to call is Megiddo, until then, it’s false prophecy.

He made an interesting rationalization, but it doesn't stop the fact that if some other murderous massacre were to take place and be labelled "Meggido", the world would be in a hell of a lot of trouble from people like my brother. That's INSANE! It gives me chills just thinking about how the very people I was raised with could be so condoning of such a terrible act, and I'm sure that if it were committed by any other people group they would see it as completely AWFUL as I do! But they don't because their old pals in the Bible story did it so it's all cool.

"It does feel like something to be wrong; it feels like being right." -Kathryn Schulz
I am 100% certain that I am wrong about something I am certain about right now. Because even if everything I stand for turns out to be completely true, I was still wrong about being wrong.